Degrees are important. They matter to both employers and students. Markets confirm that it is not just about what you learn. It is also about what your learning communicates to others. In many cases, having known credentials are required to even be considered.

BUZZ Today Source: Georgia Tech Announces Massive Online Master’s Degree in Computer Science While courses related to OMS CS (Online Masters Degree in Computer Science) will be available free of charge on the Udacity site, only those granted admission to Georgia Tech will receive credit. Degree-seeking students will pay tuition based either on individual course or the entire degree program. Georgia Tcch and Udacity also will develop a separate credential for those who successfully complete courses but do not qualify for full graduate standing. Source: Harvard University faculty member blog on Computer Science CS50x MOOC: CS50x’s “completion rate” is (defined as submission of all work with scores of at least 60%) was .9% out of 150,349 who registered. By contrast, 702 out of 706 students (99.6%) “completed” CS50 on campus this past fall (2012).

The experiments with MOOCs are revealing some important information about how students are viewing the MOOC value proposition. Let’s look at the Georgia Tech Masters degree in computer science. With help from AT&T this innovative and highly cost competitive master’s degree will cost $7,000 to the student. This cost for a master’s degree from a highly prestigious university is rightfully being hailed as a real break through in the cost of an accredited degree. The development has been praised as true innovation. It is.

But what is interesting for the discussion here, is how the students admitted to the degree granting program view the MOOC. As with CS50 at Harvard, the MOOC will deliver the exact same content to both admitted university students and anyone who desires to take the program content. In both the Harvard and Georgia Tech situations, students enrolled in the credit granting activity (CS50 in the Harvard University case and OMS CS admitted students in the Georgia Tech case) have the option to take the same course as a free MOOC. They could have the same content without paying any tuition whatsoever.

So if it were just about the content of the courses, why wouldn’t every student qualified to be admitted and paying tuition simply take the free MOOC instead? The only plausible answer, is that the students with the choice value the credential associated with the tuition. In the case of the Georgia Tech master’s degree, the value of the credential is at least $7,000. This is a bargain compared to traditional master’s programs, but relatively expensive when compared to free. The same thing can be said about CS50x at Harvard where the cost for the CS50 degree related course on campus is at least several thousand dollars. Credentials matter.

A couple of conclusions are immediately evident. The first is that to be a true substitute for the existing traditional higher education model MOOCs will have to address the credentialing issue. The specifics in BUZZ Today tells us that simply issuing a separate certificate is not sufficient to give the student the value gotten in an accredited degree program. To be truly viable alternatives, it is likely that the MOOC model will have to incorporate some of the attributes of accredited degrees. Some of these attributes will no doubt include selectivity and admission qualifications, faculty support, infrastructure support including mentoring, coaching and advising. These, along with investment in content development, will require a revenue model for investment funding. As a result, it is highly likely that at least a portion of the current MOOC phenomenon will become MOC (Massive Online Courses) with non-zero cost to fund the services that are part of a market valued credential. Another implication is that valued higher education requires more than prestigious course content.

The other dimension of the Credentials Matter conversation is the role that employers play. Job position postings overwhelmingly specify accredited degree credential requirements. The qualifications segment of those job postings do not typically say: “The following MOOCs required: _____, _______,______” They most often state:

“Bachelor’s degree required with 3-5 years experience in the field.” Credentials matter to employers too.

“Is a College Degree Worth It?” There are three important reasons the answer is almost always Yes.

A degree is a credential, it communicates important information to the external world. The first reason credentials are important is because employers screen and select new employees based on the credential. Automated resume screening software screens job candidates before an interview. The second reason is one we have explored before. On average, each progression of accredited degree (Associate’s, Bachelor’s, Master’s, Professional/Ph.D.) produces more life time income than the degree immediately below it. This is true even though some associate’s degrees produce higher income than some bachelor’s degrees. The third important reason has to do with the motivation of the learner. This last one is about you – as in Your Future is Calling. This is the reason we will explore in depth here in what I call the lessons of CS50/CS50x at Harvard University.

Source: David J. Malan CS50 blog: I am a Senior Lecturer on Computer Science at Harvard University I received my A.B., S.M., and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the same in 1999, 2004, and 2007, respectively. I teach Harvard College’s introductory course, Computer Science 50 otherwise known as CS50. In October 2012 Harvard launched a MOOC called CS50x. 150,349 students registered to take the course online. 1,388 or .9% of the original registrants received a certificate of completion for taking the course.

The data in the BUZZ Today documents the level of completion of the MOOC number CS50x offered starting in October, 2012 from Harvard University. The percentage of enrollment that received a certificate of completion was .9%. CS50 is the core course offered on the Harvard campus to students enrolled in degree seeking programs at this prestigious University. During the fall of 2012 there were 706 Harvard students enrolled in CS50. Of those 706 originally enrolled, 703 or 99.6% completed the course.

With so many nines floating around it may be confusing. The results for completion are .9% vs. 99.6%. Just to be totally clear, this is something under one percent vs. nearly one hundred percent for the same course from the most famous University in America. What does it mean?

Clearly it is not about the commonly referenced issues of course content, college reputation, faculty status/capability or time of the year. It is the same course, the same university at the same time. I will assert that what is different is the student doing the learning and more specifically the motivation of the students enrolled in the MOOC CS50x versus the motivation of the on campus student enrolled in CS50.

Here is the specific conclusion relative to the headline that the degree is important. The most important distinction between the students enrolled in CS50x, the online MOOC and CS50, the Harvard University campus course, is that all of the students on campus were students enrolled in a degree program. They were degree seeking students. In contrast, none of the students enrolled in CS50x, the online MOOC were degree seeking students. CS50x does not award college credit. By design, completion of CS50x online does not qualify for credit toward an accredited degree. There is one other important distinction between CS50x and CS50. The campus based CS50 students actually paid thousands of dollars of tuition to be enrolled while the CS50x MOOC students enrolled for free.

So the key comparisons are:

CS50x – Free MOOCM

.9% completion

CS50 – Tuition paying and degree seeking

99.6% completion

This is the same course from the same institution taught by the same faculty member. One is online and one is on campus. All of those who enrolled in CS50x knew it was online before they registered.

It’s clearly not about the cost, the content, the fame of the faculty member, nor the reputation of the institution. These are all factors frequently cited as differentiators. I assert that it isn’t even about the quality of the students attending even though Harvard’s highly selective admission policies are designed to assure high quality students. On a pure random basis, with 150,349 registrations for a Harvard course there had to be tens of thousands with the intellectual capacity of those attending CS50 on the Harvard campus.

There is only one defensible inference to be drawn from this gigantic .9% vs. 99.6% gap. The implication has to be that the campus based students were motivated to complete while the online CS50x students had no comparable compelling purpose to complete the course. The investment of the campus students represented a step toward an important credential – in this case, an accredited Harvard University degree. For the online MOOC students this was just another course out of thousands available.

And it is with this evidence that I share the third important reason for earning a degree. This third reason is about you, the learner. The credential, that is, the degree itself is a powerful motivator to do the work to learn and prosper from the effort.

Oh, by the way, I think this data has important implications for the outlook of MOOCs as the disruptive force in higher education. I will let you draw your own inferences about this issue. My belief is that MOOCs as they are constituted today will not displace the higher education as we know it.

Higher education is changing. MOOCs are a recent innovation. MOOCs are new. They represent a different model for learning. Here are important things you need to know about a MOOC. Source: Wikipedia A massive open online course (MOOC) is an online course aimed at large-scale interactive participation and open access via the web. In addition to traditional course materials such as videos, readings, and problem sets, MOOCs provide interactive user forums that help build a community for the students.

Important Item #1 MOOC offerings are exploding. Dozens of universities have jumped on the MOOC band wagon and are offering new courses at a feverish pace. Many colleges are loading content from courses they developed earlier. Others are creating new course content especially for MOOCs. MIT, Stanford, UC Berkeley, Harvard, Yale are among the prestigious universities offering courses in the MOOC format.

Important Item #2 There can be as many as a hundred thousand “classmates” in a given MOOC course. While this might seem like a vary large class, it is. There is a reason they are called massively open online courses. Your fellow MOOC classmates might include a ten year old kid and/or someone from Russia. All are welcome.

Important Item #3 The graduation rate for MOOCs is very low. The average graduation rate for traditional colleges and universities in America is close to 50% with prestigious Ivy League graduation rates over 90%. The current completion rate for MOOCs today is less than 10% of those enrolled. There is a reason. While MOOCs have some support services they are largely self study in format. The online delivery and format requires intense personal discipline. Not everyone has the self discipline to complete the work.

Important Item #4 There are emerging online catalogs that list the exploding offerings. One source is MOOC List. It is unclear how long the writers of this blog will be able to stay up with the exploding course offerings. For now it is a full listing of offerings

Important Item #5 MOOCs are not necessarily just about getting credits toward a degree. While there is an emerging way to get college credit, the majority of American colleges and Universities will not accept the new credit assignment process from the American Council on Education (ACE). But college credit is not the only reason you should be considering MOOCs as a step in your Learn Prosper pathway. Tens of thousands of students are enrolling in one or more MOOCs because they just want to learn more about a specific topic. One resource that is especially convenient with lots of small courses is Khan Academy.

The opportunity to learn prosper has not been available to many in the past. Some simply could not afford to go to a campus full time to earn a degree. The MOOC has exploded onto the higher education scene. Ten years from now the MOOC will be an integral part of higher education. For now this development is in its infancy. If you have any interest at all in learning you should try a MOOC to see how it fits who you are. As I outline in Your Future is Calling, finding out who you are and how the areas relate to the career of your choice is the place to start. From there, a MOOC may be a great learning option for you. Explore it.